Softer Than Itself

Complications fade in the proximity
of a your unexpected form
and strips magnificent
in shoulders, hips,
revokes the facade,
catches the day and quietly
tosses it away.

Ceasing to rely on recognitions,
tenderness undresses
in bundles of nakedness,
twists together hairs,
spins them between
gentle digits, forgets
remote strands.
The heat in private tears
and treachery retreats.

How gracefully gaunt hours
can encompass a pilgrim’s
compassionate touch:
towers of loneliness pencil
intimate shadows.
Foreignness migrates
under careful fingers.
Flesh tested
with subtle finesse
responds beyond
its boundaries,
expands and
is so much
softer than itself.